Daily Times

PESHAWAR: A division bench of the Peshawar High Court on Monday stayed the dismissal of doctors recruited under the Peoples Primary Health Initiative and sought a reply from the government.

The bench comprising Justice Irshad Qaiser and Justice Syed Afsar Shah while hearing a writ petition filed by Dr Raheel and Dr Arab through their lawyer Qazi Muhammad Anwar informed that the previous government started the PPHI to provide health facilities to people at the rural level.

Anwar argued that under this initiative the provincial government had recruited doctors for basic health units in different districts across the province. He stated that these doctors were recruited from 2012 to 2015 with an aim to provide better health facilities to people at the rural level.

He argued that the provision of health facilities was a constitutional right and the initiative was taken to control the health problems taking place in the society.

He stated that the project started paying dividends and helped the government in solving minor health issues turning into major diseases due to better health facilities at the local level.

He said that the government had decided to relieve the doctors of their jobs while on the other hand the Health Department had published an advertisement for hiring thousands of doctors on adhoc basis.

“If the provincial government is facing shortage of funds to pay the salaries of PPHI doctors then from where will it get funds for recruiting the adhoc doctors,” he argued.

He also said that the government wanted to recruit its blue eyed people, adding that the government had asked the doctors at the PPHI to participate in the recruitment process of adhoc doctors.

He argued that if the government could not provide health facilities to the people then it should use an atom bomb like the USA did in Hiroshima and the population would be controlled automatically.

He stated that this was a serious issue that could not be ignored adding that the expelling of these doctors was illegal and there were several judgments of the higher courts in this regard. Therefore the government’s decision should be declared null and void.

The bench after hearing the arguments stayed the expelling of doctors and sought a reply from the government.